Let me explain response videos very clearly
I've got a very specific rules here. Here's the general idea: if you don't follow them, I don't give you the time of day. They're not rocket science, I've stated them and the reasoning behind them. These are simple things, like don't insult me or don't ask for my skype. The most controversial is number 9, I don't watch response videos. I never said don't make them. Just don't expect me to watch them. Ever. People seem to have a hard time grasping this, which... mystifies me. Like, let's start with the fact that anyone who makes a response video on YouTube has a YouTube channel in which they can comment on any video they are responding too. Unless I've blocked them, and if that's the case, it's another reason I'm not listening to them. But fine, to give people the benefit of the doubt, I will give people every single reason I have. 1.) Time is a factor. My average video is 7 minutes and can go up to 40 minutes. A response video will be twice as long. That's just watching it. Then there's responding to it. A response video is meant to spark a discussion at best, an argument at worst. So, let's say it takes 15 minutes to watch one response video. I comment. It takes five more minutes for them to realize I've responded. It takes me five more minutes for me to realize they've responded. And before the discussion is over, an hour is passed. I've got an audience of over 100,000 people. I can't devote that amount of time to one specific person. Like it's not willpower; it's math. Especially when there are people who want to discuss things with me in mediums that I don't have a fit over in a manner that's more visible and I can respond to quicker. 2.) YouTube dropped the video response feature. I'm not going out of my way looking for them. And messages to me that just have a link, or are based on a link will be deleted, whether they send me to the land of puppies and rainbows or to the darknet. 3.) Say I do respond. What do you think happens? If I disagree with what they said, people see that, and they go crazy. If that's the case, either they're used to haters and backdraft, which does not bode well to their credibility, or they're not used to haters and backdraft and that kind of response can be overwhelming. 4.) Making a response video takes time. You wouldn't spend that time if you weren't overly invested in your argument. When you respond to these kind of people, either you disagree with them and you've got your head in the sand when it comes to criticism, or you agree with them and you're an idiot for thinking otherwise. I know this from personal experience when I did deal with people like this. Keep in mind, I've watched response videos to other people too. They're just as pointless. 5.) One person made a response video to my troll video. He was a self-professed troll whose argument was that trolls aren't bullies, they're there to waste people's time. Many response videos are based on logical absurdity. I don't laugh at these, I feel annoyed that I've wasted my time. 6.) One person made a response to my channel getting suspended. "Viacom was already on my ass I shouldn’t have kept uploading videos and I deserved my channel taken down." He missed the key detail that Viacom was doing it manually within the span of two days at a completely random point in time. He may have fixed it later, but if you're going through the trouble of doing this, get your damn facts straight. 7.) Not one has gotten me to change my opinion; no matter who the response video was to. 8.) Response videos are seldom directed at who they are responding to. They respond to their own audience. And you're not going to be attracted to it unless you already have their opinion to begin with. 9.) Sturgeon's law. 90% of everything is crap. This includes response videos. So, mathematically, it would take about two and a half hours of blatant insults, trolling, cherry-picking to get one legitimately good response video that I still might disagree with. 10.) Response videos seem to be held in a high regard by people who want to prove me wrong, but can't take the time to form their own opinions or arguments against me. And so there's no claims of hypocrisy going around, I don't make my reviews to give people opinions or ammo or whatever. I do them to tell my own opinion. Here's a general rule in life, when professions aren't involved (and sometimes when they are) your opinion is much more valuable than anyone else's opinion in a discussion. If I took the time to read your comment, I care about what your opinion is, not what Steve's opinion is. 11.) The reasons people would be so afraid to talk to me that they had to bring the discussion somewhere else in such a grand manner do not look good on that person. Such reasons might be that they're blocked, they feel that I may live in an echo-chamber (in which case they will most likely be counter-productively abrasive), etc. 12.) This rule is months old. You're expecting me to spend up to an hour of my time on a stranger (when I do occupy them with all kinds of stuff), but you haven't taken the time to at least acknowledge one of the things I have respectfully tried to ask. 13.) There seems to be this fallacy "because I spent all of this extra time on this thing, it has to bring in more results." That's not true, at all. But that's the attitude that most people who throw this at me seem to get. Give me time, I'll think of more. I mean honestly, this annoys me to no end, wastes my time, and now by making a response video and expecting me to watch it, I've already got a negative opinion of you. Unless I start knocking them out for copyright infringement, drop the subject. Category:Miscellaneous